Archive for April, 2011
Natural Health for Women
Interest in women’s health has exploded over the past few decades, both in the medical profession and in society as a whole. Popular topics, among researchers and magazine publishers alike, include hormone replacement therapy, breast cancer, heart disease, the benefits of vitamins and supplements, fitness and exercise, anti-aging techniques, and sexual health. This surge in interest offers a fertile environment for unproven procedures to make inflated claims about the benefits they can offer women.
WOMEN ENPOWERMENT – TYPES AND WAYS
WOMEN ENPOWERMENT – TYPES AND WAYS
N.V.S. SURYANARAYANA, Dr. T.J.M.S. RAJU, G.HIMABINDU, CH. ALEKHYA
Women constitute more than 50% of the population, undertake most of the work (two thirds) but only receive one tenth of the total income rather than men. The working hours of women are longer than that of men, often 12-16 hours per day. In addition to their domestic responsibilities in child care, women have to be responsible for housework, such as fetching firewood, water and cooking and even hard work as ploughing and raking, planting, transplanting and harvesting. Women have to suffer from continuing under nutrition and two thirds of them are anemic. Rural women lack sex education and have poor health due to frequent pregnancies. The illiterate women especially lack of information on balanced diet, family planning, house cleaning and other information to improve their health and the quality of life. They have lower status and low paid occupations, lower economic positions so they are less conscious and lack self-confidence. They have a few books and a little time to read so they can not appreciate the benefits of reading and have no motivation for reading.
The term “empowerment” has become one of the most widely used development terms. Women’s groups, non-governmental development organizations, activists, politicians, governments and international agencies refer to empowerment as one of their goals. Yet it is one of the least understood in terms of how it is to be measured or observed. It is used precisely because this word has now been one of the fashionable concepts to include in policies/programmes/projects that there is a need to clarify and come up with tentative definitions.